When transporting a patient from the place of his/her injury to a transport vehicle, or when moving a patient to/from his/her bed, a stretcher or gurney is often utilized. Such stretchers or gurneys are typically lightweight support devices capable of being rolled, wherein a patient is placed on top of the stretcher or gurney and transported thereby.
In order to provide comfort to a patient, the stretcher or gurney typically has a pad placed on the surface thereof. The pad typically covers the entire top surface of the stretcher or gurney to provide the patient with a comfortable platform while being moved.
The stretcher or gurney typically has side rails that can be raised or lowered to provide side restraints to prevent the patient from rolling or falling off the stretcher or gurney. To provide the requisite structural integrity, the stretcher or gurney, along with the side rails thereof, is often formed of metal. As such, when a patient is transported within such stretchers, he/she may roll and contact the raised side rails thereof; thus, resulting in discomfort or minor injury.
Furthermore, because such side rails can be folded or adjusted to lay in a horizontal position and, thus, provide a bridging section between the stretcher and a bed, great discomfort can occur when moving a patient across the bridging metal side rail due to a lack of padding thereover.
As such, various pad devices exist to provide a measure of comfort to a patient. For instance, one such device comprises a protective cover for hospital bed rails that forms a cover over the rail, wherein the cover must be secured in place once installed. However the foregoing device must be assembled around the side rail after it is raised.
Another device comprises an unpadded protective cover for a gurney, wherein side portions of the cover merely drape over the raised gurney rails, thereby failing to provide any securing means to retain the protective cover in place, or any padded protection from the hard metallic rails.
Additionally, separate pads that slip over side rails of a bed have been utilized. However, such separate pads are unattached to the main stretcher pad and, thus, lacking an anchoring point to the main stretcher pad, cannot retain the main stretcher pad in place during patient movement. Further, such separate pads must inconveniently be individually secured once in position on the side rails of the bed or stretcher.
Therefore, it is readily apparent that there is a need for an improved stretcher pad and method of use thereof, wherein the stretcher pad includes foldable side wing extensions that readily accommodate and provide padding for the side rails of the stretcher without the need to secure the side wing extensions in place, and wherein the side wing extensions permit articulation of the side rails from a vertical to a horizontal position.